Topics - petekelly

'IRIS' and 'Opaline' arose out of the same pool of material. On completion of the project, I realised that there was a distinction between the tracks that featured sections of percussion and 'formal' instrumentation, interspersed with more abstract tonal textures and those that were more continuous and beat-less. Hence the two separate albums.'

I don't know if this is the most appropriate place to post this, but here goes;

As I understand it, people can use Bandcamp to stream anything that's up there as long as they have an internet connection ? (I see there's a bandcamp App as well, which presumably does the same)So, if this is the case, then people don't have to buy anything there, just use it as a 'radio' in effect and the artists get nothing from this - which is worse than Spotify's model (?)

Is this why artists are just making montages or selected tracks available on their pages ?

I've always found the appeal of such things a tad strange, what do other people think ?For me, the interesting part of exploring and programming a synth (software synths, in my case) is to create your own fairly unique sounds, buying a selection of sounds that someone else describes as ambient, I don't get. Surely this is an area where exploration and imagination may well yield more personalised results ?

Slightly off-topic, but some synths have such a distinctive sound - Native Instrument's 'Razor' for example, that all these presets sound similiar anyway ?

I should say I'm not against using presets at all, it's the marketing of presets that are considered to be specifically 'ambient' (or for any other genre, for that matter) which escapes me somewhat.

I've just released a 'single' titled 'Supernature' info from my Band camp page:

'Supernature' came out of the sessions for my upcoming album 'Iris'. I felt it was somewhat different in mood to the rest of the tracks I was working on, so I'm releasing it as a 'single'. 'Supernature' changes subtlely in tonality throughout it's duration, many sources were used to create the track and the tonal shifts employed add to the tracks's overall liminal sound signature. The track's dynamic shifts are less subtle !

“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case.”

I uploaded a track and lo and behold it was sent back to me 'mastered' within minutes. It was a beatless droney track (like most of my stuff !) and it came back significantly louder and with some eq lifts at around 3K and 80 Hz. It didn't sound too different - just louder. An interesting excercise none the less methinks, will try out some other stuff for further curious-ness.

I'm something of a hobbyist photographer, in that I just do it for the fun I get from it. Saying that, I spend a lot of time doing it. I'm currently using a Sony RX100 and a Sony R1 - both good cameras. These cameras aren't the latest and greatest, but they suit my purposes. I see a gear lust analogy in the photography world, where (for example) some folks over at DP review are constantly buying and selling the newest and the best gear and are never being satisfied with the results they get (technically).

What I do is essentially a documentation of things I see out on my walks, my observations of the world I see (mostly the rural environment in the North-east of the UK). I'm keen on macro photography, as it shows a hitherto unseen world of detail for me. Lastly, my dog 'Maxa' is a much photographed subject.

I probably post about 5% of the shots I take, I try to be selective. I'm learning new techniques all the time and I've recently got into filters - infra-red, graduated color density etc on the RX100. I intend to do more Video work further down the line, as the RX100 takes pretty good video footage.

Anyway, there's a fair bit of my work over at my blog (under the photography category)

These days, I find the whole thing much more interesting from a cultural perspective rather than just the football itself. There was a great story about how the Japan fans stayed behind after a game that their team lost and cleaned up the stadium after themselves.

I live in hope of seeing world class performances from some of the brilliant players there - Neymar, Messi, Robben etc. As regards how it will benefit Brazil (the people of, primarily), that's another topic.

I think it's really interesting. I need to spend much more time with it (I've discovered a 'sticking note' bug already)Considering 'oohs' 'aahs' and 'ees' are so prevalent in female vox pads etc, I can see (potentially) lots of usage for it.

Somewhat out of step with my releasing plans for this year, I’ve released ‘Lumen’ today.

‘Arising out of a larger project, ‘Lumen’ came together as a selection of three tracks which I felt worked together as a coherent whole. There is a sonic diversity to this release ranging from sonorous shimmerings down to seismic shifts.’

From the Ultima Thule facebook page - am very pleased to be in such esteemed company :

'I am delighted to announce that the day of reckoning for Ultima Thule's 25th anniversary new music project is upon us !Back in October 2013 I invited many of the artists whose music we've supported over the last quarter century to consider creating a new, unreleased piece of music for us, inspired by the theme "going beyond the borders".The response has been overwhelming, with nearly 40 artists submitting a total of 34 original musical creations, ranging across a gamut of ambient styles.Ultima Thule is delighted and honoured to premiere the first 13 of these on our 1008th broadcast, this Sunday 9th February.

Still working away on new material here at Flame acres.New year – new albums to be released. Here’s an update:

My ‘IRIS’ album has been put on hold temporarily while I’m working on a newer project which will be my next release. This album (provisionally titled ‘Ikon’) is a more experimental project than is ‘usual’ for my material. Percussives and a harder electronic sound are the order of the day for this one, there will be quite a range of ‘sonic dynamics’ on this one.

I shall be returning to ‘IRIS’ once ‘Ikon’ has been released. It will be a primarily guitar orientated work and more ‘musical’ in a formal sense than my more abstract other work. Currently I’m hoping for a late summer / august release, but this will be more definite when I return to working on this project.

I'm not getting into the merits / demerits of the music as such, just that it seems a whole lot more commercially oriented than ambient. There's some artists who crossover from the ambient side of things, but they aren't as 'hardcore' (an oxymoron here ?) as some of the big name new age artists I've come across. I'm not being judgmental about that, I'm just curious. My only dalliance with the 'scene' was trying to push the 2004 '8 Shades of Sound' album I produced, but I gave up on that as I wasn't too keen on sending hundreds of copies of the CD to the States (where all the radio stations were based) I'm curious if things are still the same ?

I'm sure some people here know much more about this side of things - Bill B, Jeff P et al

Don't these artists have bad days and want to release some fiercely abrasive dark ambience ?